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Hard to believe that I’ve had this little beauty since the middle of May! Attentive viewers may have seen her in my post showing my entire collection (well, not anymore since I’ve had a few additions since then but hey!) but now she gets a post all to herself. Here’s Exelica from Alter!!

Exelica is the main character in the Shoot-em-up game Triggerheart Exelica which started off as an arcade game and was ported over to the dreamcast and was one of the very last games made for the console. It received a release on Xbox Live early this year so that would be your best chance to grab a copy and have a go.

Personally, I’m a much bigger fan of crueltear, the second playable character in the game, but this version of exelica was very impressive and, since it’s from alter, you know the quality will be good.

A fair few bloggers have already taken pics and done their own review so this one won’t be too in-depth as everything which needs to be said have been said. But one thing which cannot be emphasized enough is the size. This Figure is BIG!!! Even the box was big. How big? well, here’s a MG destiny gundam box for comparison…

Depth wise, the box isn’t too bad, about the same as Destiny, but the same cannot be said about the figure when you’ve put her together!

The base holding Exelica alone is around 26cm long and could easily take up a whole Detolf shelf from IKEA (Just used that as an example since I know a lot of figure collectors have Detolfs)

The figure itself is based of the games stage 2 victory screen (after each stage, you get some artwork of your characters and your score is overlaid on top of it. This pose can be seen when you complete stage 2 as exelica) and the box says that it was sculpted by Tsumezuka Hiroyuki, who I’m starting think is part of the Cerberus Project group since they released a near identical resin figure last year, except theirs can stand…

And this is the back of Exelica, which most of your enemies would prefer to see…

The figure also came with the 2 main weapons used in the game and they were packaged separately so you could move them around separately, but you’ll probably end up keeping them pretty close to conserve space anyway.

First up is the standard cannon. It shoots bullets. I don’t think anything else needs to be said since it’s the main staple weapon of all shmups! Excelicas shooting pattern is a spread attack while Crueltear only shoots straight ahead but that’s about the only difference in the game.

And this is the anchor unit. This is an interesting bit because it allows the player to access the main selling mechanic in the game which allows it to differentiate from other shooters.

Most shooters have different weapon types which you change by collecting the right powerup, Ikaruga has the black/white forms, Psyvariar gave you a large character with only a small damage zone so you could collide with bullets and charge up your smart bomb so long as your damage zone remained untouched!

For Exelica, we had the anchor unit which allowed you to grab enemy units and draw them in. You could then use them as a shield until they died or throw them back at your enemies for massive damage. It also provided a major point in the games plot, but I don’t think anyone’s really interested in the plot of a shmup…

The figure also provides a small level of “cast off” in that you can remove the armour from the main figure. Having said that, the weapons are always detached and the backpacks aren’t actually connected to exelica at any time… So that means that the only thing you can remove are the armour parts for the legs. Looking very school swimsuit there Exelica!!

Obligatory pervy shot. Cute butt tho…

Given that this is an alter figure, a certain level of quality was expected and Exelica does not disappoint. Aside from looking 100% like her game incarnation, the paintwork is top notch with only a couple of very minor mistakes which can be easily overlooked.

The pic above reminds me of moetan for some reason…

Closeup of Exelica, fully equipped.

GO! Carnoball!! wait, that’s crueltears line… oop!

Overall, I’m happy with this purchase. Even if it is oversized, it is an excellent representation of the character. It’s just a shame that it’s now discontinued and, even if you did want one, the price is on the high end of the scale (£80 is what I paid for the privilege). There is another one from a company called BEAT and is due out in august. It’s cheaper than this alter version, but I don’t think it comes even close in the quality side of things! I think it also lacks the cannon and Anchor unit.

If you’re on a budget and really want an Exelica, then BEAT is an option, but if you’re a big fan of the game (like me), and if you can find it, I would advise tracking down and paying the extra for the Alter version. It’s just better in every way!

On a completely separate note, For those of you in London, I have loaned out my C.C figure to orbital Manga so if you want to see my works face to face, pop down and have a look.